In the paper products industry, many paper treating procedures such as printing, folding, die cutting, foil embossing, collating, and binding are performed on sheets of paper fed individually from a palletized stack of sheets. To insure uniform treatment of each sheet, the sheet stock, be it heavy corrugated paperboard, card stock, or lighter weight paper, must be effectively detached from its neighboring sheet before undergoing a processing operation. Adjoining sheets may adhere to one another as the result of static, adhesive properties of ink, or other reasons.
Heavy weight sheet paper material such as corrugated paperboard and card stock have long been aerated by jogger/aerators. Conventionally, these machines receive a stack of paper loaded vertically upon a pallet, rotate the stack 90.degree., and disperse a flow of air through a restricted segment of the stack to separate the sheets while vibrating and aligning them.
Conventional jogger/aerators are provided with one or two blowers, the output of which may be combined to direct a first or a second level intensity of air flow through the stacked sheets. Some prior art jogger/aerators are also provided with an air escape valve which allows a portion of the blower output to be directed away from the paper stack. Although adequate for corrugated paperboard and other relatively stiff paper stock, conventional jogger/aerators have proved inadequate in handling light-weight stock comprised of sheets having substantially no vertical stiffness. Light-weight stock when subjected to the intense incremental air blast of a conventional jogger/aerator may well be blown clear of the machine causing the loss of a significant portion of the stack. Heretofore, light-weight paper sheets have typically been aerated by hand manipulation of small stacks of paper.
What is needed is a jogger/aerator which may handle light weight stocks and which is controllable to prevent damage to the stack.